Tag Archives: poem about death

On the Precipice

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On the Precipice

Toes peeking over, eyes cast away.
I do not want to look today.
Time enough when time is over.
It’s true I’ve ceased to be a rover,
for though I’ve seen the Nile’s beginning,
I can feel my chances thinning
for ever standing at its end.
I’m feeling too close to the bend
to chance the risks travel might take.
I’m living less for living’s sake.

My house and garden fill my world,
increasingly. My life is curled
fast on itself more frequently.
“Becoming” has turned into “be.”
It is not giving up on life
so much as drawing back from strife.
Surely, now’s the time for this,
as I approach that big abyss.

Those of faith are sure they know
the glorious ending to this show
we’ve seen via nature’s invitation;
and yet the minister’s oration
you must admit, is speculation.
That’s why as I stand toe-to-air,
I have no need to see what’s there.
Whatever’s written far below,
it’s where at last, we all will go.

The prompt word today was “precipice.”

Final Curtain

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Final Curtain

Do not rest on your laurels. Do not dilly-dally,
for you never know what action will end up as your finale.

The prompt today was “final.”

The Wheel: NaPoWriMo Repetition Poem, WP Daily Prompt

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The (Wh)eel

We sail through life on an even keel,
solving every small ordeal
until one day, it turns surreal
as death slides in like a slippery eel,
our place in nature to firmly seal,
our invulnerability to steal.

It’s true these thoughts were never real,
but still, we feel what we must feel.
In youth, our lives are stainless steel,
Our pains are solved, our wounds all heal.
Then death slips in like a slippery eel—
gives no second chances. Does not deal.

A carnival barker with his spiel,
death lures us with unfettered zeal,
to spin us on the ferris wheel—
all our accomplishments to peel
and all our woe and all our weal
to cast from us, reel after reel.

On a ride that nothing can repeal,
it’s our turn to be nature’s meal.
The surreal now becomes the real,
and we join the universe’s wheel.
The organs keen, the bells all peal
as death slides in like a slippery eel.

 

jdbphoto

The WP Prompt today is “heal,” and the NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a poem that depends on repetition.

NaPoWriMo2017, Day 3: Reliquary

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Reliquary

On Sunday morning under orange bougainvillea,
Your picture spills from an old album.
You were on a verandah under purple bougainvillea,
drinking the hot noon from your coffee cup
as I drank passion fruit and watched Lake Tana birth the Nile.

Later, kneeling by the river, I made my hand into a cup,
but you called out that slow death swam the blood
of those who touched the river,
while behind you on harsh branches,
black birds barked stark music.

Now, on Sunday morning under orange bougainvillea,
half a world and half a life away,
 I restore you to your proper place, remembering how,
when they laid you down to dream beneath the purple bougainvillea,
it was passionfruit’s sweet poison that flavored my life.

 

Please also see this elegy: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2016/10/11/look-up-poem-for-a-good-good-girl/

The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to write an elegy.

Loving Lee

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Loving Lee

She was not the easiest one
to be around, but she was fun.
Her wit was sharp, also her tongue.
And yet, I counted her among
those dearest if not nearest to me.
It was she who chose to woo me
with books she thought me ready for
filled with strange and heady lore
of living by my intuition
through which I came to my fruition.
My whole life was changing then,
Buscaglia and Jung and zen.
I’d moved west and changed my thinking,
took up pot and gave up drinking,
decided that my thoughts on men
needed revising. Only then
did life straighten out for me—
and part of it was meeting Lee.
She read my poems, studied my art.
I dodged her tongue and won her heart.
As she won mine; yet other friends
rejected her sincere amends,
’til I was one of two or three
who chose to let our friendship be.
Yes. It was, I must confess,
because I saw her less and less.
When I moved off to Mexico,
our intercourse was rare and slow.
The one last trip I took her on,
quickly, truth began to dawn.
Her memory span had grown so thin
that barely did a thought begin
before it came around again
to the place where we’d just been.
Sometimes our world leaves bit by bit
until we are well rid of it
Not so the friends who leave us slow.
We still aren’t ready to let them go.
My world was better for loving Lee,
but with these lines, I set her free.

The WordPress prompt today was lovingly. I chose a slightly different approach to the word.

Comfortable Mortality

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Comfortable Mortality

After living my life, I must pay the price,
but I don’t want to die by fire or ice.
Not toasted by flames or frosted with snow.
A temperate death is the best way to go.

The prompt today was “Flames.”

 

Playthings

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I have always found the below poem comforting and so, after quoting a line of it to Marilyn Armstrong just now, decided to share it with you all, as well. That said, I promise.  No more posts about death. For awhile

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                  Nature

                  by: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

As a fond mother, when the day is o’er,
Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
Still gazing at them through the open door,
Nor wholly reassured and comforted
By promises of others in their stead,
Which though more splendid, may not please him more;
So Nature deals with us, and takes away
Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
Being too full of sleep to understand
How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

Shhhhhh?

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Silence

What lost sensations do our nightly slumbers bring?
Do colors fade out when we dream? Are scents a former thing?
Does flavor tremble on our tongues in that dreaming land?
Do we hear music in our sleep or feel a lover’s hand?

Let bright colors fill my eyes, let flavors dance my tongue,
and let all those sensations that surged when I was young
once again assault me and guide my sense of touch––
to feel all of life’s textures that once I loved so much.

There will be silence in the future when we’re in the clutch
of that which muffles music, color, flavor, touch.
So let the neighbors party on. Let thunder crash and roll.
Let ravens caw out harshly from each electric pole.

Let babies loudly protest and laughter’s raucous sound
fill my ears like cups and spill out to the ground.
I am sure that one day I will have silence enough
when my final dream guide takes me by the cuff

and leads me off to sleep a final slumber where
supposedly I’ll be removed from every worldly care—
leads me off to dreams where all sensations end
and I shed life’s cacophony as I round the bend.

The prompt word today was “Silence.”

Abandoned

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Shack+Pump3.jpgPhoto Credit: D. Hammock

Abandoned 

Grass sways by the abandoned house
I cower inside––a trembling mouse
exposed to the bright flash of day
when all else has gone away.

First my father, then my mum
go away and never come
again to shelter, feed or love.
Life is a winging mourning dove

that makes us and then flies away,
making green grass into hay,
the flush of life and then decay,
a harsh light turning shadows gray.

Life swells  like paint–a curling blister.
It peels away my older sister,
then also takes my younger brother
and never comes to bring another.

A shadow passes over me.
A sparrowhawk. I dare not flee,
for life is mainly perilous.
It makes us just to feed on us.

Outside I see the preening cat.
It waits for me––patient and fat
in tall grass by the abandoned house
wherein I hide–a trembling mouse.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/abandoned/

Triple Tricky

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Triple Tricky

Who knows what each new day will bring?
Three dogs wiggling outside my door–
my feeding them, them wanting more.

The world reaches out for me and more.
Those worlds imagination  brings
come whining louder at my door.

Now and always at time’s door
I offer words and ask for more
than what, I know, the years will bring.

Agape once more, that final door brings me at last to face my fears.
I bring myself to cross its sill, still hoping there will be some more.

The WordPress prompt is “Tricky” and and NaPoWriMo prompt is to write a tritina–a poetic form that involves three three-line stanzas and a final concluding line. Three “end words” are used to conclude the lines of each stanza, in a set pattern of ABC, CAB, BCA, and all three end words appear together in the final line. I cheated and used two concluding lines instead of one. This poem meets both prompts. Tricky.
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-seven-3/
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/tricky/